By ARTHUR KIMBALL-STANLEY, THE PROVIDENCE (R.I.) JOURNAL

Updated 10:00 pm, Sunday, June 4, 2006

Five years ago, Tim Lemire went back to Boston College, where he had been an undergraduate, to participate in an alumni program called Career Night for the Arts.

The idea, Lemire said, was to advise undergraduates who majored in some of the less applicable subjects on how to begin a career, or even find that first job.

Sitting on the panel and listening to the questions students asked, Lemire said, he noticed that every year the questions were the same: Should I go to journalism school? How do I get into publishing? Do I need an MFA?

He realized students were asking the same questions he had years ago when he began his varied career. Lemire, who majored in English, has worked for newspapers and publishing houses, and as a freelance writer and editor. He has been a teacher and a corporate-communications specialist. Honestly, he said, he never really figured out what he wanted to do with his English degree.

The title of his new book, "I'm an English Major -- Now What?" is a question Lemire has been asking himself for decades. In setting out to write his career guide for English majors, which was published last month, Lemire said he hoped to clear up some things for students who decided to read Norman Mailer and Virginia Woolf instead of economics and accounting.

"This is the book I wish I had had when I was an English major," Lemire said. "This is the book I wish I had had when I had just gotten out of college."

Lemire's book goes through some of the major career paths for English majors, such as teaching, journalism and publishing, and highlights the best way to get a foot in the door in these industries. He also discusses the growing demand in corporations for people who can successfully convey complicated ideas into text.

The three big myths Lemire tries to dispel are that English majors' career options are severely limited, that they will never make good money and that they will never find work outside academia. While this book isn't the read for English majors setting out to write the great American novel, those looking to become wage slaves might find it helpful.

"You know a lot of people say English is a versatile major," Lemire said. "But any major that doesn't prepare you for any one job can be called versatile. In order to make what they have studied marketable in the workplace, (students) need to understand that what they are learning is not just facts about books, but skills that are essential."

What an English major can sell employers are not his insights into "Pride and Prejudice," but the ability to write convincingly about those insights. Having written analytical papers about obscure texts year after year positions English majors for a job turning a company's marketing concept into a proposal or brochure, Lemire says.

"Everyone can read and write, but not everyone can communicate," Lemire said. Students "don't have a concept that there are thousands of people out there who need help writing. ... There is a whole area of need out there for you to write for someone else, and it opens up a lot of opportunities."

Lemire said English majors should be more aggressive in finding business executives who need to communicate, but who are too busy to sit down and write for themselves.

"You can get a job within a corporate-communications department," he said. "You just need to poke around and seek out those opportunities."

John Pryor, human resources manager at GTECH, said Lemire is right. GTECH is a company known for hiring mathematicians and other quantitative majors, but it is currently in the midst of hiring for its Business Proposals Group. People who can put the research and analysis of the company into a format that potential clients can understand are crucial.

"If you can write, you can do a lot of different things," Pryor said. "When you think about how people communicate today, so much is done over e-mail and short sound bites, but there still is a real opportunity for people who can write well."